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Whittier, John Greenleaf, 1807-1892

"The Conflict with Slavery, Part 1, from Volume VII, The Works of Whittier: the Conflict with Slavery, Politics and Reform, the Inner Life and Criticism"


5. The result has proved the entire correctness of this conviction; and
the planters would now be as unwilling as the blacks themselves to return
to the old system.
Let our Southern brethren imitate this example. It is in vain, in the
face of facts like these, to talk of the necessity of maintaining the
abominable system, operating as it does like a double curse upon planters
and slaves. Heaven and earth deny its necessity. It is as necessary as
other robberies, and no more.
Yes, putting aside altogether the righteous law of the living God--the
same yesterday, to-day, and forever--and shutting out the clearest
political truths ever taught by man, still, in human policy selfish
expediency would demand of the planter the immediate emancipation of his
slaves.
Because slave labor is the labor of mere machines; a mechanical impulse
of body and limb, with which the mind of the laborer has no sympathy, and
from which it constantly and loathingly revolts.
Because slave labor deprives the master altogether of the incalculable
benefit of the negro's will.


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